Burgeoning commerce in recent years has helped grow Beijing's influence in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region of strategic significance for the United States. 

Harvard University expanded its lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's moves to cut off billions of dollars in federal funding to the Ivy League school on Tuesday after officials said they are terminating an additional US$450 million in grants.

The Trump administration welcomed on Monday 59 white South Africans it granted refugee status in the US, having deemed them victims of racial discrimination, while drawing criticism from Democrats and stirring confusion in South Africa.

Donald Trump on Sunday defended plans to receive a new Air Force One as a gift, after reports he will accept a luxury Boeing jet from Qatar despite strict rules on presents for US presidents.

In the verdant suburb of Philadelphia, locals, professors and students reveled as Cardinal Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV on Thursday.

The trade dispute, combined with US President Donald Trump's decision last month to impose duties on dozens of other countries, has disrupted supply chains, unsettled financial markets and stoked fears of a sharp global downturn.

Trump is locked in a diplomatic row with South Africa over a land expropriation act that the Republican leader says will lead to the takeover of white-owned farms.

The new Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago, was entrusted by his predecessor Francis to head the Dicastery for Bishops, a key Vatican department that advises the pontiff on appointments.

"Congratulations to Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who was just named Pope. It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope. What excitement, and what a Great Honor for our country," said US President Donald Trump. "I look forward to meeting Pope Leo XIV. It will be a very meaningful moment!"

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told US President Donald Trump on Tuesday that his country would be "never for sale" as they met at the White House amid tensions on tariffs and sovereignty.

Humanity recorded an unexpected and "unsettling" slowdown in development in 2024 as the global post-pandemic recovery began losing steam, well before President Donald Trump dramatically cut US international aid, the UN warned Tuesday.

The entertainment industry reacted with alarm and bafflement on Monday after President Donald Trump said he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all movies produced outside the US, but issued few details on just how such a levy would work.

The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was freezing billions of dollars in future research grants and other aid until the nation's oldest and wealthiest college concedes to a number of demands from the Trump administration, a senior department official said.

The announcement comes as the White House is coming under mounting criticism over its aggressive trade policies that have seen Trump impose sweeping tariffs on countries around the globe.

Harvard students weave through tree-lined streets and redbrick campus buildings, but beneath the veneer of daily life fear has taken root: the most prestigious university in the United States is bracing for an "assault" by President Donald Trump.

The United Nations is considering a massive overhaul that would merge major departments and shift resources across the globe, according to an internal memo prepared by senior officials tasked with reforming the world body.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday his administration will revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status, returning to a threat he issued against the Massachusetts school last month as part of his wider attack on elite universities.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which has been tracking press freedom for the last 23 years, said its main index had fallen to its lowest-ever level.

NPR and PBS are only partly funded by the US taxpayer and rely heavily on private donations.

The United States and Ukraine on Wednesday signed a minerals deal after a two-month delay, in what President Donald Trump's administration called a new form of US commitment to Kyiv after the end of military aid.

In the statement, Brazil said the group's foreign ministers expressed "serious concern at the prospect of a fragmented global economy and the weakening of multilateralism" at their gathering in Rio de Janeiro. 

A narrowly divided United States Senate rejected the latest bipartisan bid to block President Donald Trump's tariffs on Wednesday, just hours after the federal government reported that the nation's economy contracted for the first time in three years amid the chaos of the president's tariff policies.

United States Ambassador to Indonesia Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir, who was appointd by former US president Joe Biden, will leave the country by the end of April and be temporarily replaced by the embassy's deputy chief of mission until the appointment of the next ambassador.

University advisors quietly told students from abroad to hire a lawyer and keep attending classes while legal appeals played out, according to over two dozen students, immigration attorneys and university officials.

Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, records for more than 4,700 students have been removed from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement-maintained Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

United States Ambassador to Indonesia Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir will conclude her mission in Jakarta later this month, the US embassy stated on Tuesday, officially announcing the end of her nine-month long tenure in the country. 

Some 42 percent of respondents to the six-day poll approved of Trump's performance as president, down from 43 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted three weeks earlier, and from 47 percent in the hours after his January 20 inauguration.

Francis inherited a deeply divided Church after the resignation in 2013 of his predecessor, Benedict XVI. The conservative-progressive gap became a chasm after Francis was elected the first non-European pope in 1,300 years.

In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process.

Analysts urge Jakarta to properly follow up the trade tariff negotiations with Washington as well as the first meeting between Foreign Minister Sugiono and United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio in order to produce meaningful outcomes and a closer relationship between Indonesia and the United States.